


Communion

by ginger_rude



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Torchwood
Genre: A small amount of fluff, Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreamscapes, Dreamsharing, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Frottage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mind Meld, Missing Scene, Past Torture, Pining, Post-Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sensuality, Shaving, Showers, Slash, mindscape, to the point I forget a lot of them now actually, tons of TW and DW canon references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 03:58:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 16,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19099297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginger_rude/pseuds/ginger_rude
Summary: Set between the Master's death and the very end of Last of the Time Lords.   Jack and the Doctor have a little time to connect in the TARDIS.  All takes place over one long night, more or less.  There are a lot of references to Torchwood, older New!Who, some classic Who.I excavated this from my old lj account; yes, it's really mine.  You can tell because apparently, even after ten years, I still lean toward long dark nights of the soul in slash.





	1. Prologue

Appropriately enough, Jack has lost all but the vaguest sense of time.

Lucy had shot the Master; that was as clear and hard and bright as diamond. The report, the stagger, the blood. The look on his face. And on his. Then they all had stood, or half-stood, still reeling from the vertigo of the rescinded year, and watched while their savior cradled their torturer in his arms and then wept over his body like a broken-hearted lover. 

After that was when it got a little hazy. The smoke from the Master’s funeral pyre seemed to soften everything into a blessed blur: helping the Doctor haul the other Time Lord into the TARDIS, winding the ugly mouselike corpse in sheets, bringing the Valiant back down to earth, getting Lucy and the Jones family…settled. The storm of confusion when the reporters finally arrived on the bizarre scene: no sign of Saxon, Winters, or the Toclafane, just a ragtag group of people in fancy dress, one near catatonic, the rest in a state of hysterical exhaustion. And himself, caked in a year’s worth of grime, doing his best to be plausible and charming anyway; and Martha, who did most of the talking. 

…Retrieving his confiscated possessions, finally, thank you very much, not least his stash of Retcon. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been nearly enough, and the soldiers were their priority. The Joneses were just going to have to cope as best they could until he could get back to the Hub. And Lucy…come to think of it, he couldn’t place her, after a certain point. What had happened to her, anyway?

Finding the Tardis and then the Doctor, after a few false starts with the teleporter and a lot of hoofing it. Arriving at the top of a hill just in time to witness the end of the scene, a hundred yards or more downslope. One pale figure standing over another, prone. The touch of the torch. 

The sweet smell of burning.

The Doctor, emerging from the shimmer and smoke, climbing steadily toward them. 

****

All that matters is right now, and right now, Jack is in the shower. 

There isn’t enough water in the world.


	2. Chapter 2

Jack’s still a little disoriented as he leaves the bathroom, still towelling his hair; he can’t remember coming in this way. It’s possible the TARDIS is subtly rearranging itself again. He’s emerged into what Jack thinks of as “the green room,” partly because it reminds him of the cozy, slightly claustrophobic backstage dens of his theatre days, partly because the carpet and couch are, indeed, green. 

Sitting in one of the high hard chairs is the Doctor, still fully dressed from trainers to trench coat, sporting traces of soot and a thousand-yard stare. 

Jack catches his breath, then dips a nod at the Doctor, who doesn’t react at all. 

A pause. Jack clears his throat. “Ah…” The dark eyes flick in his direction. 

Jack jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “All yours.” As though there were only one bathroom on the TARDIS, and the Doctor had been waiting his turn. The Doctor nods slightly. Jack hesitates. “Okay,” the Doctor confirms. 

Jack starts to head out, then pauses again at the door. 

The Doctor still hasn’t moved. 

Eventually he looks at Jack; it’s as though he hadn’t noticed he was there before. “Oh, hello.” Voice a little more normal, face still expressionless.

“Hello,” says Jack, a little too heartily. He takes a breath, then summons up one of his thousand watt smiles. It’s wasted; the Doctor’s already a million miles away again. 

“Are you…” Jack trails off; obviously, neither of them are particularly “all right.” 

The silence lengthens. Finally, instead, Jack ends up blurting,

“Can I help you?”

The Doctor looks at him again, the barest of movements. Jack doesn’t expect him to answer at all, but he does, finally:

“What would I need help with?”

Jack gestures. “You tell me.” He offers the smile again. “At your service.”

The Doctor lifts one shoulder, slightly. “Nothing more to be done.”

Jack waits, again. Nothing else seems forthcoming. Shaking his head, Jack turns to go, then stops again and looks at the Doctor, feeling increasingly wrongfooted. 

The Doctor sighs. “I’m going to have a wash, and then bed. All right?”

Jack falls into the old routine. “Hey, like I said…at your service.” He grins suggestively. 

The Doctor rolls his eyes. “Do you ever give it a rest?” 

In another tone, it might have been part of their usual banter, but it comes out harshly enough to make Jack recoil. He’s suddenly, acutely aware that he’s naked, and for the first time in his memory he feels ashamed by it.

“No problem,” he says, and heads out, knotting the towel around his hips as he goes.

****

Jack wants his bed in the worst way and is pretty sure he was heading right for it, but after fifteen minutes of wandering this way and that only to end right back at the frigging green room, he’s resigned himself to the whims of fate or the TARDIS. What the hell; he left his clothes in the bathroom anyway, he might as well pick them up. Steeling himself, he starts back through. 

The Doctor is exactly where he left him. Jack doesn’t mean to address him this time, but as he passes, the Doctor says, softly,

“Jack. I’m sorry.”

Jack looks at him; watches the Doctor pass a hand over his face. Almost despite himself, he feels the anger drain out of him. Somehow the Doctor looks older than he ever did on the Valiant. 

He should go, he knows; but it’s like he can’t move. “Listen…” he starts, not sure how he’s going to finish.

The Doctor raises his eyes. “I’m fine, Jack. Really.”

Jack looks at him doubtfully.

“Go to bed,” the Doctor adds.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you going to bed?”

“I told you.”

“Okay. It’s just that you haven’t moved from that chair in twenty minutes.”

The Doctor says nothing. 

Eventually: 

“You look tired,” Jack ventures.

“I am tired,” the Doctor says quietly. 

Jack takes a step toward him, then stops. “Let me do something for you. Please.”

“What? Put me to bed?” But it’s kind, this time; the Doctor even smiles a little. “Really, Jack…”

“Yeah. If you want me to,” Jack says. “Whatever you need. No big deal, though.” He’s dropped the play-flirting; the Doctor simply looks at him. Jack takes a breath. “Just, would it be so bad, once, if you let…someone…care for you? I mean…” He swallows. “…I’d like to.” 

The strangest look crosses the Doctor’s face. Briefly, though. Then it’s back to the distant-gazed mask. 

So Jack isn’t expecting the Doctor’s next utterance:

“Okay.”


	3. Chapter 3

Jack feels slightly lightheaded. The Doctor's face is still impassive. Or...is that the faintest sardonic glint? A challenge?

"Okay," echoes Jack, at last. His voice sounds too loud in his own ears. He takes a deep breath, and crosses to the Doctor. "For a start, let's get the coat off."

The Doctor doesn't exactly help, but passively allows Jack to maneuver his arms out of the sleeves. Jack tries not to look at his face.

"And..." He kneels, then, and carefully removes the trainers and socks. As he does, he becomes aware of what this must look like: himself, with only a towel around his loins, kneeling at the Doctor's feet. Well, it's fitting, he supposes. The carpet is rough beneath his knees.

He looks up, and winces: this close, the dried bloodstains stand out quite clearly even against the dark pinstripes. He stands, extending a hand to the Doctor as he does; obediently, the Doctor rises with him. Jack removes his jacket and then the tie, fingers fumbling slightly with the knots.

Jack takes a minute to fold the soiled garments as best he can, arranging them neatly on the chair. The Doctor is already moving vaguely in the direction of the bathroom; all right, that answers that question. Still, Jack's feeling uncharacteristically unsure as he follows the Doctor inside and shuts the door.

The light seems softer than when Jack was last in here, and the whole space is definitely bigger. The shower stall is now practically a room in itself. Beyond it, a small pool shimmers like a mirage. It’s not clear where the room ends and the mirror begins. The Doctor just stands there, looking lost.

Jack turns his back firmly on his own haggard reflection and attends to the Doctor. Continues to undress him. The roof of his mouth is coppery with adrenaline, and his throat is dry. He tries not to wet his lips.

When he gets down to the shorts, he stops again to fold the shirt and pants and put them out of sight. Then he turns the shower on, busying himself with minute adjustments to the temperature.

He turns around and is startled by the Doctor, now naked, standing directly behind him. It takes Jack a second to realize he’s blocking the entrance to the shower; wordlessly, he stands aside. Then, after a pause, drops the towel and follows the Doctor in.

It’s a lot easier with the Doctor’s thin back to him.

He takes a little soap, and a cloth, and tentatively places one large hand on the nape of the Doctor’s neck. Meeting no apparent resistance, he begins to gently wash him.

As he moves from the Doctor’s neck to his back and then downward, his movements become slower and slower until it’s a meditation, really, each small patch of skin its own end, nothing more and nothing less. He’s found “right now."

It ends when he’s carefully wiping the last bits of dirt and blood from the Doctor’s hands; he’s jolted by the memory of the last time he did this for a grief-numbed someone.

_There’s nothing we can do._

Wrong again, apparently. They could and they did. Nothing stays, nothing is final, nothing is fixed and fated, not a happy ending, not a tragic ending, not life, not death, not even time itself. Not nothing itself. Nothing, there’s nothing. Oh, God, there’s nothing.

Nothing, that is, but him. If that. Would it be a blessing or a curse?

_Do you want to die? Jack._

_I don’t know…_

He’d come so close, or thinks he might have, after his battle with the entity from…well, beyond. He wonders if he had a choice, then. He still doesn’t know. He’d only fully come back when she turned to go; even she couldn’t stick around forever. He understands.

He wonders if she thinks he’s forsaken her, now. The rest of them already thought so, he knows that.

He wonders if they miss him.

By now he’s worked his way all the way back up the Doctor’s front, almost without self-consciousness, neither hurrying nor unduly lingering anywhere.

Jack looks, finally, into the Doctor’s face. It’s quite clean, now. His eyes are closed, the dark lashes a wet tangle.

He moves behind the Doctor again, and washes his hair. The Doctor lets out the smallest sigh as Jack massages his scalp, and Jack allows himself to enjoy the feel of the fine, silky strands slipping between his fingers.

After one last rinse, Jack shuts the water and towels them off, the Doctor first. Then they’re stepping out, and Jack is feeling strangely exhilarated, as though he’s just run—and won—a long-distance race.

He ties a fresh towel around his waist—hey, he’s nothing if not modest, right? Wraps the Doctor in a soft robe. Comes around to face the Doctor, placing a hand on each terrycloth’d shoulder.

The Doctor is smiling slightly. Jack grins back.

He realizes he has absolutely no idea what comes next, but he doesn’t stop grinning.

He moves to cup the Doctor’s face, as he’s done once before. Thing is, he’s not saying goodbye this time. Instead he says, after a moment:

“You could use a shave.”

The Doctor’s face is placid, even a little amused, as Jack sits him down on a bench and then rummages through the cabinets. He’s absurdly touched to find not only what he needs, but paraphernalia tailored expressly to his tastes, old-fashioned guy that he is, and he pats the wall fondly. Good girl.

For a few minutes he loses himself in the pleasures of the ritual: rinsing the soft brush, mixing up lather in the palm of his hand, deftly stroking the suds onto the Doctor’s face, stropping the blade. The warm smells of leather and bay rum.

It’s only when he’s poised to make the first stroke that it occurs to him: this is the man he’s now died for countless times. Who abandoned him without so much as a backward glance. Whose second coming, patiently awaited for over a century, led to a year of darkness and horror and madness that can’t even be told. Who sobbed over the monster who nearly ended everything, but hasn’t spared a tear or even a thought for him.

Who told him he was _wrong._

Who hadn’t even had the decency to come back to him with the same face, so he could have the satisfaction of hitting it.

Who is now sitting there, freshly cleansed, eyes closed, long white throat exposed…as Jack stands over him with a straight razor.

He doesn’t move. There’s a dull roaring in his ears.

The worst thing is, he knows perfectly well that there was a time when he would have done it. John, for one, would have expected no more and no less. Actually, John would have done it long since, but then John was always a man of simpler needs.

And then, of course, it’s the Doctor himself he has to thank—or curse—for the fact that he’s no longer that unthinking, gaily heartless man. Couldn’t be even if he wanted to. And he does, right now, he really wants to.

What would happen? Would lightning strike him? Would the Doctor just regenerate? Slip away without saying anything? Elude him again, just as he thinks he’s got a grip on him this time, and oh sweet Jesus, he didn’t see it before, this face has the tiniest freckles across the bridge of the nose. Freckles.

He’s undone; his own eyes close. He doesn’t move his hand at all.

When he opens his eyes again, the Doctor is looking right at him.

Jack can’t read that expression at all. It isn’t fear. He doesn’t think.

After a long moment, slowly, deliberately, the Doctor closes his eyes again.

Jack takes a few shallow breaths. Stills, with an immense force of will, the tremor in his hands.

With infinite care, he shaves the Doctor.

At last it’s finished, and the Doctor rises to face him. Once again, the Doctor is smiling slightly. Once again, Jack puts one hand on each of the Doctor’s shoulders, standing well back.

_Just don’t look down._

Before he can say anything this time, the Doctor speaks:

“I can take it from here.”

Jack nods, withdraws, even as he asks, “You sure?”

The Doctor nods gravely.

Jack sketches a quick salute and turns to go.

He can’t help taking a last glance over his shoulder, though.

The Doctor winks at him.


	4. Chapter 4

Eventually, Jack finds his room. It’s exactly as he remembers it; as though not just the last year but the last century and a half was nothing but a bad dream.

Whether it’s from fear of slipping back into the dream or simple adrenaline, Jack can’t sleep, although the bed feels wonderful. 

The thought of hot coffee stings his throat. In theory, it’s the last thing he needs.

The hell with theory. It’d be the nicest thing he’s had in his mouth in a year. He paws through the dresser, throws on a wife-beater and a pair of boxers. 

The TARDIS kitchen is a cheerful orange now, he notes. He thinks it was more art deco, before. 

The rich smell of coffee is like a homecoming. 

He’s just pouring out his second cup when a soft noise behind him makes him whirl around, spilling a few hot drops across his arm. 

It’s only the Doctor, of course. Heart still in his mouth, Jack wonders dismally how long it’s going to take to get back to “normal” this time. If he ever really was. Come to think of it, he can’t remember a time when he didn’t at least get anxious if his back wasn’t against a nice, solid wall, although he’s kept it well hidden. Now, though…

With an effort, he shoves all that away, grins crookedly at the Doctor. 

“Hello again.” 

“Hello again,” Jack echoes. He gestures toward the table and chairs. The Doctor pads over and sits down. 

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”

“No worries.” Jack finally finds a sponge, wipes the counter and the floor. Makes himself a fresh cup.

“Is that coffee?”

“Uh, yeah. You want?”

“No, thanks.”

“I can put on some tea.” 

The Doctor hesitates. 

“It’s no problem.”

“Sure?” Jack is already putting the kettle on. “Cheers, then.”

Jack brings milk and sugar and his own mug over to the table, starts to sit. He pauses with one hand on the back of the chair.

“Do you want to eat? I can make something.”

The Doctor considers. “Maybe we should. Are you hungry?”

Jack shakes his head. “You?” 

“Not really.”

The silence stretches. The Doctor fiddles with the sugar bowl. Jack sits. 

“When did Martha say she’d be back?”

The Doctor raises his eyes. 

“Said she had some things to take care of. Spend the night with her mum and dad. She’ll be meeting us back here tomorrow, early afternoon, she said—one-ish, two-ish.”

“Right. Where are we, exactly?”

“Cardiff.” 

Jack’s stomach contracts. “Oh,” he says, softly. 

The Doctor spills a little sugar onto the table, absently running a finger through it as he talks. 

“The TARDIS is already healing up nicely, well, you can see that, but a day or so soaking up Rift energy’s the best thing for her right now. She’s been through a lot, you know...”

Haven’t we all, thinks Jack.

“So,” the Doctor is saying, “it works out. We all get a bit of time to recharge. You could pop round the office and say hello to your…” the Doctor flaps a long white hand, “colleagues, I expect. Hope you don’t mind, I won’t join you, I’m knackered, and much as I enjoyed Torchwood’s hospitality last go-round, think I’ll give that one a miss.”

Jack absorbs this. 

“So,” he says casually, “does this mean I’m still on board when you take off again?”

The Doctor looks at him quizzically. “Well, obviously. Unless you don’t want to be. I assumed you did.”

Just like that, then. Jack has the most disconcerting feeling, as though he’s stepped off a moving staircase he’d been climbing for hours and hours.

He knows he shouldn’t push it, but he can’t help himself. He does try to keep his tone light. “As long as you’re sure it isn’t going to be a problem. The being wrong thing.”

The Doctor’s forehead creases. “What?” Then, “Don’t be stupid.”

It warms his heart, it really does. “Yeah, okay. Only, if you…if your ship gets spooked again, we might end up in the middle of the Big Bang and combust or something. I’d hate to be responsible.”

“The TARDIS knows you’re a friend. You would have known otherwise by now, believe me. And she isn’t a horse. Stick to riding inside from now on and you’ll be golden. If you don’t want to come, just say so.”

“I didn’t say that.” He wants to say more, but he’s distracted as the Doctor sucks the sugar from his fingertips, apparently completely unselfconscious. 

The Doctor catches his gaze, one finger still at his lips, just as Jack’s trying not to smile. “What?” 

Jack doesn’t say anything. Just keeps looking at him. The Doctor’s eyes widen slightly. He folds his hands on the table and appears to become very interested in the progress of the teakettle across the room. Jack grins to himself. 

“By the way,” Jack says eventually, “when are we?”

The Doctor tells him. Jack winces. The Doctor raises an eyebrow. “Problem?”

“Just been kind of a while since I left here.”

“Can’t help it. You know as well as I do what a particularly spectacular cock-up it’d be to try to cross that timeline. Why, does it matter?”

Jack stares at him. 

Hello? Job? Responsbility? People I left behind?

He doesn’t say any of that, of course. Because really, he’s not one to talk. He’s the one who ran after the Doctor in the first place, after all. 

Meanwhile, the Doctor’s already clearly lost interest. He’s now doodling what looks like a math equation in the spilled sugar, humming tunelessly to himself.

There’s a small hard place somewhere in Jack’s gut that won’t go away, no matter how much he wills it. 

Just like that, then.

Easy come, easy go. He knows very well how that works. And how attractive it can be. Can’t argue otherwise. All that matters is right now. Until suddenly, one day, it doesn’t.

Jack closes his eyes. The dull throbbing in his temples is getting steadily worse. 

The teakettle whistles.

Lips pressed together, Jack fixes the Doctor’s tea.

He sets the cup in front of the Doctor. 

Just as he’s letting go, the Doctor covers Jack’s hand with his own.

Startled, Jack meets his gaze. It’s clear and direct.

Softly, sincerely, the Doctor says,

“Thank you.”

And, just like that, the small hard place dissolves, along with the rest of Jack’s insides.

Goddamn it. 


	5. Chapter 5

The Doctor doctors his tea with milk and about twelve spoons of sugar. He catches Jack’s eye again as he’s raising the mug to his lips. Raises an eyebrow, then holds out his mug. Jack hesitates, then clicks his cup with the Doctor’s. He starts to sip his tepid coffee, then raises his mug again and says,

“To absent friends. To ourselves.”

“For a bloody war in a sickly season,” murmurs the Doctor.

Jack can’t remember the rest of the traditional Naval toasts. “L’chaim,” he adds. The Doctor laughs. “To the year that never was,” Jack finishes, and drinks.

The Doctor’s smile fades. “Yep,” he says, popping the “p.”

They sit and drink without speaking. Jack absently rubs his wrists.

“You know,” Jack says eventually, “kind of ironic. I’ve got a whole lot of memory that’s spotty at best, and two years of my life I can’t remember at all. I was jealous of the regular people who knew everything they said and did, everything that happened to them… Now, I’ve also got a year’s worth of memories that—almost—no one else has, and I’m jealous of the ones who forgot.”

The Doctor is looking at him. “Really? You’d rather not know?”

“I don’t know,” Jack admits. He sighs heavily. “Maybe I got something from this last year. Something I needed.”

The Doctor arches the eyebrow again. “Like…?”

Jack shrugs. “Actually, no idea. Torture and dying horribly and really crappy food…it’s not like they were exactly new experiences for me. Or being locked up with a crazy person for months and months. On the other hand…those two missing years. For all I know, they were the best years of my life. I highly doubt it, but…Point is, I don’t know. For better or for worse.”

Abruptly the Doctor scoots his chair over until it’s nearly touching Jack’s. He raises his hands to Jack’s face.

“I never did this for you, did I?”

Jack stifles a sigh as he feels the first faint probes. Someone’s in the foyer. Knock, knock, nobody home. No solicitors, please. We already gave at the office.

“Doc, no offense, but other people have tried to read me. A lot of people.”

“And none of them were me.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “That’s a point. Maybe modesty was the missing ingredient. But are you sure this is a good idea right now?”

“Why not?”

Jack can think of a good half-dozen reasons why not, but a look at the Doctor’s face has them all dying on his lips. This is repayment, he understands, and it would be churlish to turn it down. And then the slim fingers are dancing lightly across his sensitive temples... Jack closes his eyes, surrendering.

“Try to relax,” says the Doctor. “Mm. This may take—yes, I see. Oh, dear. You’re—“

“Wrong,” Jack supplies. He slits his eyes open. The Doctor frowns, shaking his head slightly. “Complicated,” he murmurs.

Jack allows himself to drift back down into darkness. He deliberately slows his breath.

falling

But no, it's never that. Not with him. He has, briefly, the image of a humanoid figure suspended on a strand of rope, lowering itself or being lowered into a black murk. The figure is orange, for some reason.

He drifts.

The Master had tried to get inside his head, of course, at first with the insinuations that worked on everyone else, then with all the grace and subtlety of a battering ram. He'd gotten bored with the attempt fairly early on. After all, he still had plenty of ways to amuse himself with Jack physically...

"Try to let go of that for now," comes the Doctor's voice, and Jack realizes, with a start, that he's in.

The Doctor drones on about clear spaces and landmarks and coming back to this place whenever he needs to.

"Now imagine a door..."

Jack nods impatiently; this is 101, kid stuff, this is not what he needs, this is...

_(Oh)_

And yet, suddenly and unobtrusively, there he is, for the first time in he doesn't (can't afford to) remember how long: the between place, the waking dream.

_Alongside (as) his guide, he walks._

_He (they) come(s) to something like a wall, or a thick membrane: the crenelated surface is elastic but impermeable. He has an impression of fingers lightly exploring well-worn grooves, searching for a point of ingress. There is none._

_There is no way under it, there is no way over it, there is no way around it._

(Jack tries not to fidget; the hard wooden chair is beginning to give him an ass cramp)

_And now it's as though the tracery of furrows has risen up, expanded, and become a labyrinth, and he/they move through it like syrup. There are corridors that narrow to threads, and cul de sacs with minute fissures, tiny knotholes..._

_And then, suddenly, there's a turn and a sheer drop, and the vista widens into_

(Jack's eyes fly open, but he still sees this as well as the kitchen)

_a vast colorless space, and over a century's worth of his life woven through it in a dazzling kaleidoscope, half-coalescing into a derelict mansion. doors within doors within doors_

(Jack shuts his eyes again; it only makes the vertigo worse)

_\--and each opening is a bone-deep jolt--_

  
_Kissing his namesake's ghost goodbye, the sweet-rot taste of rationed booze and rue still in his mouth as he disappears. The shining vault in the silent chilled room, filled with friends, colleagues, lovers, all neatly filed away. A hundred bloodied bodies, a thousand shovelsfull of dirt, one eulogy running into the next, the next, the next. Soldiers choking on rose petals, a tiny frail shrunken corpse like a fallen bird..._

Enough.

He pushes. _Flash of saloon doors swinging back as he blasts through and--_

\--he's on his feet, panting, and the Doctor is rocked back in his chair, looking stunned.

Jack's head thumps and buzzes. "You know," he gets out, "if you want my autobiography, next time, just fucking ask. I'll even sign it for you."

"I'm sorry," the Doctor says evenly. His face is still pale and shocked.

What else is new.

Blood is rilling from the Doctor's nose. Jack wonders if he did that. Probably not. Physically, anyway. "You're bleeding," he says. The Doctor feels. He goes over to the sink. Jack crosses his arms.

"So?" Jack says, finally. "What'd you find?"

The Doctor shakes his head, his back still to Jack.

"Must be pretty bad if you don't even want to tell me."

The Doctor half-turns, still pressing a wet cloth to his face; his voice is muffled.

"I couldn't find your missing years. Well, no, I found them, more or less. I can't access them. Someone did quite a job on you."

"Any idea who? Or how?"

"No. That's what I was looking for, some sort of hint, but..."

"Mhm. Might be because you were looking at after it had already happened."

"Yes, well done, it's not as though there's a map, or a, a google, if I'd known exactly what I was looking for and where to go it would be a lot simpler, wouldn't it?"

"Sorry," says Jack, although he's not, really.

"Anyway it would have been even more work to get to the very early memories. There's something dodgy about those as well, but I couldn't get more than a glimpse of that whole period."

"Okay," Jack says. "So, what did you see?"

"I told you."

"Not really."

"Nothing you don't already know." The Doctor gingerly removes the cloth and dabs a few last times, sniffing.

Jack waits.

"That's it?"

The Doctor's back is to him again as he washes his hands and face.

"What do you want me to say?"

"The truth? For once."

The Doctor pauses, still not turning.

"What are you on about?"

"Something really shook you up just now."

"Not at all." The Doctor is taking longer than Jack ever would have guessed possible to find a clean towel and dry his hands.

"You saw something," Jack insists. "I'm a big boy, just spit it out."

"I told you--"

"Yeah, I know, you told me. Nothing I don't know, okay. You also told me I was wrong, remember?"

"What does that have to do with this?"

"You tell me."

The Doctor throws up his hands, still not facing him.

"Jack. I have no idea what this is all about, and frankly--"

"Let me help you out," Jack says, biting off each word. "I'm the freak who can never die. Something happened to me and apparently it's freaky enough that you abandon me--"

"Oh, we're back to that again, are we?"

"You can't even look at me--"

"Oh, honestly--" the Doctor turns back around, face screwed up, eyes rolled toward the heavens. "This is all a bit Boys in the Band, isn't it, Jack? I hardly thought you the type."

Jack blinks.

"...You started it," he says, lamely. The Doctor rolls his eyes again. "And you're still not looking at me."

"This is rubbish."

"What's wrong with me, Doc? What aren't you telling me?"

The Doctor looks him in the eye this time. He spreads his hands. "God's my witness. I didn't see anything just now that would be news for you. I would tell you if I had. I'm sorry I couldn't do more. You...reacted strongly to my presence. It took me off guard. That's all. All right?"

Jack doesn't respond right away, but he's about to when the Doctor nods briefly, turns on his heel and leaves the room at a fast clip. Jack stares after him for a moment, then follows him down the hall.

"No. Not all right."

Twenty paces ahead, the Doctor either doesn't hear him or pretends not to. He disappears through a door. Jack follows him.


	6. Chapter 6

Twenty paces ahead, the Doctor either doesn't hear him or pretends not to. He disappears through a door. Jack follows him.

It's one of the TARDIS' several libraries, not the largest. The room is comfortable and warmly lit, furnished in plush fabrics and rich jewel tones. The Doctor peruses one of the enormous teak bookshelves with seeming intentness. Jack walks up behind him. The Doctor plucks a book from the shelf and begins to ruffle through the pages. 

"Not all right," Jack repeats. The Doctor sighs theatrically. 

"What is it now, then?" 

"My wrongness, okay. Is it a big deal or isn't it?" 

"I don't know what you--" 

"Because just now, it seemed like you were saying it's not. No big deal. Doesn't freak you out. Doesn't change anything between us." 

The Doctor looks up. "Yes. Exactly. Quite right. Is that all?" 

"So," Jack says evenly, "in that case, how come you, in your words, 'ran away from me?'" 

The Doctor lets out something between a hiss and a sigh. 

"Because the last time we had this conversation, you told me that you ran away from me because I'm, oh okay not wrong now, let's say 'metaphysically challenged'. Remember? Only now, you're saying that's not it after all." 

The Doctor is silent. 

"So, why'd you really leave me behind, Doctor?" 

"I told you. I was busy." 

"Busy." 

"That's right. Rather a lot going on at the time. You may have noticed." 

"...Fine." 

"Good." 

"Why didn't you come back for me?" 

"Oh, Christ." 

"It's a really simple question." 

"And what do you think the really simple answer is, then?" 

"At this point? Basically, you didn't give enough of a shit." 

"Ah, well, there you are, then, brilliant." 

The Doctor seems to be having difficulty wedging the book back into its proper place on the shelf. He fumbles and drops it, spine up: On the Road. Jack goes for the book at the same time the Doctor does; the Doctor just beats him to it. He straightens, pivots away from Jack, and shoves the book home. 

Jack pursues. "But hey, I shouldn't be surprised, right? It's what happens to pretty much everyone who travels with you, isn't it? Well. Everyone except maybe--" 

"Stop it." 

"One day we're more trouble than we're worth or you get bored, and buh-bye." 

"That's right." The Doctor's voice is low and biting. "All of them. All of you. Every man Jack. Utterly disposable. Never think twice. Never look back. Did you think you were special?" 

It hurts to breathe. "I--" 

"No, no, no, no, no, don't tell me. You thought I was special, and therefore it just couldn't be possible that I simply didn't, as you put it, give enough of a shit. Well, delighted to put matters straight. Sorry to be such a letdown. Are we quite finished, now?" 

The Doctor starts to leave. Again. 

Jack finds his voice. "I waited for you for over a century." 

The Doctor stops walking. "Seems you had plenty to occupy yourself with." 

"...Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I did. A bunch of wars, for a start. Which, funny thing for a coward, you know what I really took away from those? That you don't leave your comrades behind on the battlefield." 

The Doctor has become very still. When he finally speaks, his voice is soft, and it raises the hair on the back of Jack's neck: 

"Ah, yes. Soldierly duty. Wartime ethics. Bravery on the field of battle. Please, do instruct me. Captain." 

Time to backpedal. "I wouldn't presume, okay. But here's what I do know: it's a shitty way to treat your friends." 

"Is that what this is about, then, Jack." The Doctor's voice is still soft and dangerous. "Friendship." 

Jack's eyes are starting to burn. "Among other things, yeah." He glares defiantly at the back of the Doctor's head. 

"All right," the Doctor says, quietly. "For over a hundred years, everything you did, it was just...marking time, while you waited for me to come back and save you. Yes? Well, here I am, and here we are. Another madcap adventure behind us. Grand, wasn't it? Tell me, was it worth the wait, was I? Show you a good time? Make everything all better, like I always do? Was it good for you, Jack?" 

The depth of bitterness in the Doctor's voice startles Jack. 

Slowly, Jack says, "That's not why I..." 

He trails off. 

I didn't ask for you to save me. I don't expect you to make everything better.

Because it's not true, is it? 

He'd never been much of a reader, but during the past year, he found himself mentally escaping into every comforting bit of fiction he could recall--books, movies, fairy tales, retelling and retelling himself the old familiar stories, being his own Schehezerade--to the point where lines and passages often pop into his head spontaneously. Now, he finds himself flashing on an exchange from The Wizard of Oz:

"I think you are a very bad man," said Dorothy. 

"Oh, no, my dear; I'm really a very good man, but I'm a very bad Wizard, I must admit." 

And then, unwillingly, he thinks of Gwen, beside herself with grief and rage, hurling herself at him, her hero, her demi-god, her magic man, demanding miracles: 

"There's something you can do, otherwise WHAT'S THE FUCKING POINT OF YOU?!" 

How unfair it all was. Is.

At length he says: 

"I just...wanted to understand what happened. You don't owe me anything, I guess. You'd already saved my ass. More than that. You took me along in the first place, you didn't have to. You didn't ask me to die for you..." 

The Doctor mumbles something, too softly for Jack to hear. He pauses, wondering whether to ask him to repeat it. In the end, he simply says, 

"I missed you." 

Without really moving or changing position, the Doctor seems to sag. 

"The three of us, you know," Jack goes on, somewhat hastily, "just bumming around...that was the happiest time of my life. I guess I knew it'd end one way or another, sooner or later. Everything does. Just...maybe not so soon or so suddenly, you know? I mean, if you get a choice at all. You usually don't. But. I thought maybe, since..." He stops again. 

The Doctor is silent for so long that Jack thinks he's not going to reply at all. Finally, though, he speaks: 

"What was her name?" 

This is a curveball. "What?" Then, "Who?" 

The Doctor gestures. "Your woman. Away with the fairies. She thought you were your own...son, grandson. You were with her at the end." 

It clicks, then. "Estelle?" 

"Estelle," the Doctor repeats, softly. "Lovely name." Then, even more quietly, "You're braver than I." 

Jack is silent. The Doctor puts a hand to the back of his neck; Jack notes the white knuckles, the veins standing out tautly. 

"I let you die for me," says the Doctor. "It wasn't what I would have asked, no. I certainly didn't intend you to live for me. I am sorry, Jack." 

"I'm not," says Jack. 

He's not sure the Doctor understands; the slight frame seems to shudder slightly. Before he can elaborate, the Doctor takes a breath, and says: 

"You're right. I should have done things differently. Better. I should have looked after...looked you up, afterward, at least. Something. I apologize." 

Jack has that strange vertiginous feeling of stepping off an escalator again. There should be trumpets sounding in triumph now, a chorus of hallelujahs. He's right. He's been vindicated. He's won.

Terrific.

When he doesn't respond, the Doctor spreads his hands. "All right? I don't know what more you want from me." 

Truth be known, Doc, not sure I did either. 

He moistens his lips. "Can you look at me?" This time it comes out far more plaintive than accusatory. 

The Doctor drops his hands. Slowly, he turns to face Jack, and this time Jack is the one who looks away. 

He's already seen the Doctor crying once in the past day or so. While this isn't the obscenity that was, it still feels indecent to watch, somehow. 

"...Maybe we should call it a night." 

The Doctor nods. Neither of them move. 

Eventually, Jack makes a move, because someone has to. Crosses over to the Doctor. 

"Listen," he starts, but he doesn't get any farther than that, because as he puts a hand on the Doctor's shoulder, the world implodes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extensive, if jumbled, quotage from various New Who episodes, including but probably not limited to "Dalek," "The Parting of the Ways," "Age of Steel," "Army of Ghosts," "The Lazarus Experiment," "42," and "Utopia." Also, very slight allusions to TW "Adam," as well as Torchwood in general.

part two

part three

part four

part five

...????.... 

_ohgodtheresnothingtheresnonotwhatwherewhonowherecantbreathe_

_(all burnt, they all)_

_....._

_cold,_

_(my people called it the Void)_

_so cold, so_

_(the Eternals called it the Howling)_

_(burn)_

_(NOW! FOR THE LOVE OF RASSILON, DO)_

_(burn with me)_

_....._

_(but some people call it)_

_nothing there's_

_(my people called it)_

_cold_

_oh God there's_

_(my people)_

_nothing, there's_

_....._

_(gonegone)_

_cold, so_

and Jack snaps back into the room, gasping for breath, 

(what? what??)

completely unmoored. 

(someone left the door open)

He's still disorientated, but he's come back to himself enough to realize that he hasn't literally been sucked out into space. It's still the closest his mind can come to interpreting what he's just experienced: a sudden rush of nothing, a push into absolute zero, the withdrawal of light and warmth and sound and form and movement and air and

(love)

companionship, a disconnection, a vacuum, a terrible silence... 

And he's shocked back again, as the Doctor swims into his field of vision just in time for Jack to see him crumpling to the floor, mouth open in a soundless scream.

"Doctor!"

Jack rushes to him, not quite in time to catch him entirely, but he's just able to break the fall--

_a burst of agonizingly bright light, a horrible sensation of ripping, inversion_

and as the spasming body of the Doctor twitches free of his nerveless fingers, he understands that the connection hasn't broken, that touching the Doctor again sent him through those swinging saloon doors and all the way into 

(hell)

some devastating memory of the Doctor's own...

Shell shock, Jack thinks, as he regards the convulsing Doctor. That's what they used to call it. Now it's something like post-traumatic something or other, but...

He's certainly seen other people through flashbacks before, but not when physical contact would mean galvanizing himself right along with them. He hesitates.

"Doctor," he says, but the Doctor doesn't seem to hear or see Jack at all. His eyes are bulging, his face a bloodless mask. Instinctively, Jack reaches for the Doctor again, then stops, hovering. 

"Doctor..." he says again, helplessly. No response. 

The Doctor begins to hyperventilate.

Jack steels himself, then gathers the Doctor into his arms.

_burn_

_the light_

_open_

_it opens, a golden_

_(I looked into)_

_(the untempered schism)_

_too bright, too_

_(and the TARDIS looked into me)_

_the Eye_

_(it's burning me up, I can't control)_

_the power_

_(never meant to happen)_

_the light, the_

_(if a Time Lord did that he'd become)_

_infinite_

_(but she was human)_

_light_

_(and what she did was so)_

_life_

_(but she)_

_(You're gonna burn)_

_(couldn't control)_

_(burn with)_

_(can't control life and)_

_(How can I let go of this? I bring)_

Jack suddenly gasps harshly, hugely, gulping air as if for the first time.

 

_(I create myself)_

_(the whole of/life and death)_

_(I bring)_

_(the final act)_

_(exterminate!)_

_nonononono_

_(Everything must come to dust)_

_(ankle deep in)_

_bone. ash._

_(The power's gonna)_

_dust._

_(Everything dies)_

_(and it's my fault)_

_stop_

_(I could)_

_(stop this now)_

_(The Time War ends)_

_(I can see every single atom of your existence)_

_oh God, there's_

_(and I divide them)_

_**nothing.** _

_scared_

_(a god, a vengeful)_

_so scared_

_(I could **kill** )_

_nonononono_

_(But I can)_

_(if he/I open my/his eyes it'll)_

_(burn)_

_golden_

_(I can see the whole of Time and Space)_

_(and I divide)_

_rising, rising, the power, the fury, the joy,_

_**(burn with me)** _

\--and it's as though a great steel door slams shut, and Jack is himself, more or less, the gasping Doctor in his arms. At the same time, he's still reeling from the steady barrage of images and voices and emotions.

_(Ten million ships on fire...wiped out in less than a second)_

_(everyone lost)_

_(and the coward survived)_

_(alone in the universe)_

_(What's the point? Why don't you finish the job? Why don't you just--)_

Nauseated, Jack shakes his head, trying to clear it. 

"Doctor. Can you hear me?"

Nothing.

 

_(in the end you just get tired)_

_(everyone lost)_

_(tired of losing)_

_(everyone that matters)_

_(the only certainty is)_

_(watching everything turn to)_

_(dust and more dust, dead planets, burnt-out stars, rents in the fabric of)_

Jack opens his eyes to the ceiling, takes a deep breath, then, wrapping his legs around the Doctors', plants his feet firmly on the ground, silently willing the Doctor to do the same. 

"Doctor. Come back to me."

The Doctor utters a heartrending cry. His eyes are still glassy and unseeing. Jack tightens his grip.

"Come back, Doctor. Please."

"Come back," echoes the Doctor, and a wave of his grief, so scalding it's like shame, rolls through Jack. "Please! Please come back..."

"Oh, my God," Jack mutters. He tries his best to dispel the relentless flood of desolation and despair with a visualization of his own, but he's unable to summon up anything but an afterimage of the library itself.

If I ever run out of things to do with my immortality, I'll come back here and spend a few millenia reading all these books. Real Tiffany lamp, isn't that? Nice.

Apparently this does the trick; the Doctor is already considerably calmer. Jack gets an empathic flicker of kinesthetic awareness: the room, his own presence. 

He leans into the Doctor's back, reaches around to place one hand on the Doctor's chest, the other over his diaphragm. 

"Breathe." 

The Doctor hitches and gulps. Jack breathes deeply, exaggeratedly, slowly.

"Breathe..."

The Doctor takes a long, shuddering breath, and abruptly bursts into tears. 

"I know," Jack murmurs. He moves one hand up to stroke the Doctor's hair, pulls him even closer with the other. Closes his eyes. "I know."

And now he, or they, is/are...somewhere, a deserted

(beach?)

husk of a planet, a silent ship, not even sure who he/they is/are, just feeling/hearing the deathly stillness, the lack, the

(void)

(nothing, there's)

(no one else left)

Deep wrenching sobs like the grinding of rusty gears; the Doctor shakes with the force of them.

lying on something cold and hard, aware that something beyond terrible has happened but not much more, naked, raw, alone, so very, very

(abandoned) 

"Oh, no," says Jack, wretched. "Oh, sweetheart..."

His throat stings. The Doctor's pale contorted face blurs, doubles, trebles...

He plants a soft kiss on that face, then another, tasting tears. Pillar of salt, he thinks incoherently, that's what that means, this is what happens when you look back.

"Sweetheart," he whispers again. "Listen." He lays a hand on the Doctor's cheek.  
"Listen. You're not alone. You're not alone. Okay? I'm right--look at me. I'm right here. Be with me. See? You're not there. You're here with me. You're not alone. I've got you. I've got you..." 

Jack holds the Doctor, rocks him as he weeps.

On and on. On and on. 

"I've got you," he murmurs into the Doctor's hair. "I've got you."

At last, little by little, it begins to subside. The Doctor moves back, puts an arm across his face, then presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. He reaches inside the top of his robe. Jack's heart twists as he realizes the Doctor is fumbling for his glasses. 

Eventually, realizing, the Doctor lets his hand fall. He glances briefly at Jack and then away. Jack puts a steady, comforting hand on the Doctor's back.

"Come sit."

After a moment, the Doctor allows himself to be guided over to the sofa. 

The Doctor stares at a spot somewhere in the middle of the floor. When at last he speaks, his voice is hoarse and cracking.

"Can I have some water?"

"...Yeah," says Jack, softly. He gently touches the side of the Doctor's head, lingering. 

Jack waits until he's well out of the room before he breaks down himself.

When he gets back to the library, for a second he's convinced that the Doctor's disappeared, and, seized by a strange panic, nearly drops the glass.

He calls out, and as he does, he sees that the Doctor had simply slumped over on the couch until his head was no longer visible over the back. The Doctor looks at Jack as though he's gone insane; apparently he sounded as wild as he felt.

Jack sighs. He brings the glass of water over to the Doctor, who takes it in both hands and nods thanks, wordlessly.

He sits down next to the Doctor and shuts his eyes. He's suddenly aware that he's exhausted. 

He's not sure if he'd actually fallen asleep or just zoned out. What he is gradually becoming aware of is that there's been a shift in the energy. Hyper-attuned to such matters as he normally is, even without the low-grade telepathic connection he still seems to have with the Doctor, he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt what that is; and still, he can't quite make himself believe it.

The Doctor's leg is warm against his own. Jack steals a sideways glance at him. The Doctor still stares straight ahead, his face a perfect blank. Somehow, Jack is aware that the Doctor is about to reach a decision. He holds his breath.

Slowly, the Doctor turns to face him. Jack looks into the brown eyes; they meet his own steadily.

If I'm wrong about this...

But he knows he isn't.

He mentally casts a prayer to whatever benign forces might be out there, and leans in.

At the very last instant, the Doctor moves in to meet him. Too fast; they actually collide, and Jack's lips are mashed back against his teeth. And then...

Part of him is performing on automatic pilot; he's still too stunned by the sheer surrealness of the whole thing to fully savor it, although at another level the warm sweetness of the Doctor's mouth is very nice indeed, if a little too forcefully one-note. At one point the Doctor increases the pressure until Jack is literally breathless.

At last they break off, panting. The Doctor has a slightly wild expression, Jack thinks. And then, with one sentence, the Doctor ups the hallucinatory ante exponentially:

"Do you want to fuck me?"


	8. Chapter 8

"What?"

The Doctor repeats it, this time punctuated with a grab. It's devoid of finesse, just this side of painful. It's also kind of freaking Jack out. And oh, sweet Lord, it's been over a year--

Well, all fucking right, then. 

He seizes the Doctor by the collar of his robe, then by the hair, and then they're tearing at each other in earnest. 

It's oddly jarring, though; he feels like he's being pushed and pulled at the same time, somehow. 

"Um," he manages thickly, between teeth-rattling kisses. "I don't have anything..."

If the Doctor hears this, he gives no sign of caring or slowing down. Next thing Jack knows, the Doctor is pale, prone and bared before him, harsh gasps muffled by the cushion.

Jack spits into his hand, then again, grimacing. Applies, positions himself...

He knows it's not going to work the second he touches the Doctor: he's like marble. 

Jack sits back on his haunches and regards the Doctor. The clenched fists, the way he's grinding into the sofa, not sensual so much as giving the impression he's trying to dig in. Bury himself. Or, well, whatever it is--

"Okay," Jack says. "You know what, I don't like this."

The Doctor, having stilled, gives a short, incredulous-sounding bark of laughter. Jack decides he doesn't much care for that either. 

He waits until the Doctor's sitting upright again. He waits a little longer, but the Doctor studiously looks in the opposite direction. 

Jack can see this is going to require delicate handling.

"The thing is..." Jack trails off. Finally: 

"This just...doesn't seem like you."

Still looking away from him, the Doctor says:

"Who am I, Jack?"

Sensing that this is as close to a safe answer as he's going to get, Jack says, 

"Well. I don't really know."

"That's right," says the Doctor, flatly. Jack restrains himself from rolling his eyes, just. "Okay," he says. 

He pauses, trying to think of a way to phrase this without causing further embarrassment. None comes to mind. 

"...Can I ask you a question?"

"I don't want to talk," the Doctor says. His voice is still flat, even sullen, and Jack mentally slides "First time for everything" to the end of the bitten-back queue.

"Yeah," he says aloud. "I'm getting that." He hesitates again. "What do you want?"

"I told you." 

Jack shakes his head. "Not really." 

He catches the Doctor's gaze. Cups one side of the Doctor's face, lightly, but holding him in place. Strokes behind his ear with forefinger and thumb. Watches the eyes flicker and glaze as he leans in.

This time, just as the Doctor starts to push back hard, he pulls away until his mouth is just touching the other man's. Hovers there. Pulls back a tiny fraction more. Lets the soft crackling between their lips build. 

There's the lightest tickle at his cheek--those lashes, perhaps. He hears/feels the Doctor's breath stutter and catch and release into the charged space between them, light and cool. Jack makes a soft "O" and sips. For a moment it's as if they're suspended there, just softly exchanging breath.

Finally, Jack moves again, the barest brush of lips against lips. And again: just grazing, not even kissing, dry and soft and unbearably slow.

He does it once more, a touch more firmly, just a whisper of wet at the very end. The Doctor makes a soft noise in the back of his throat. Jack encircles the Doctor's neck lightly with his hand, feeling the vibrations, then strokes up and down as the Doctor swallows. 

Languidly, Jack traces a path around the Doctor's face with his lips and tongue. A rain of softer-than-air kisses on the freckles. A susurration down the hairline to one ear, there to flick and nibble and blow. A slow hot drag along the jaw, until he reaches the Doctor's mouth once again. And there, finally, just one tiny, precise peck at a sensitive corner. The Doctor shudders against him, and then they're kissing in earnest again. 

Jack lets his hands roam over the Doctor's spine and ribs, strumming the fine bones. He nips, and the Doctor moans into his mouth. 

He slows down again, savoring, tasting. Salt, still; and sweetness, yes; and the delicate astringence of tea. And then, an undernote of something...different, something Jack can't quite translate, although it's far from unpleasant. He thinks of a deep well in an ancient glade: loam, stone, cool water, green and secret and shaded and clean. 

This is the Doctor, he thinks, and heat arrows through him. 

One of the Doctor's palms comes to rest lightly on Jack's thigh. Jack covers the slim hand with his own and none-too-subtly tries to guide it upward; now he's the impatient one. The Doctor merely intertwines his fingers with Jack's, passively resisting. Jack squeezes back, caressing as far as his thumb can reach.

He nudges the Doctor's legs apart with a knee, shifts, twists. When his cock brushes cool skin, he presses in deliberately, letting the Doctor feel him. The lips against Jack's thin briefly; muscles bunch beneath his hand. Jack pauses, frowning slightly.

He gnaws a collarbone, presses a kiss into the hollow at the Doctor's throat. Startled, he lifts his head: surely no one's heart can beat that fast...? A second later, of course, he remembers. Even so. And the Doctor's skin, just warm enough to be pleasant to the touch--it occurs to him that for the Time Lord it's downright feverish. 

Jack draws back a little, considering, even as he continues to touch and taste and explore. The Doctor's mostly a study in sensual abandon, all flushes and fluttering lids. There's still a tautness to him, though, a reticence, even...

"Relax," Jack murmurs, delving between the Doctor's legs. The Doctor arches briefly, then squirms away with a snort of laughter as Jack strokes up his side. Jack grins, then sighs, then sits up. Gently, he disentangles himself and stands.

It takes the Doctor a moment to reorient himself. He blinks hazily at Jack. 

"Be right back," Jack says, before the Doctor can say anything. "Don't go anywhere."

The Doctor flops back down with a sigh. Jack pauses at the door.

"Stay," he adds. The Doctor's hand comes up over the back of the sofa in the "okay" sign.

As expected, he finds what he wants back in the bathroom, which has helpfully moved right next door. He takes the opportunity to perform all the usual functions and ablutions while he's at it. Reflexively gives himself the once-over: yep, still looking good, if a bit discombobulated.

"What the hell am I doing," he asks his reflection. The way the night's been going, it wouldn't surprise Jack to get a response. He's just not sure he wants to hear it. He gathers up the little bottles and hurries back to the Doctor.

The light's gone agreeably soft and smoky. There's even a suggestion of incense, the faintest hint of music throbbing somewhere in the background... He re-enters quietly, not wanting to shatter the mood.

Casting about for a convenient surface, he's arrested by the sight of the Doctor, now sprawled on his side, heavy-lidded, one hand curled loosely around his cock, slowly stroking. Jack watches for a long moment. Then, he sets the bottles down on a side-table. He's careful, but there's still a soft clink. The Doctor's hand flies up like a startled bird. Quickly, he rearranges himself into a pose of studied nonchalance.

"You don't have to stop," Jack says softly. The Doctor shifts again, looks as though he's going to reply, but whatever it is gets lost as he nearly rolls right off the couch. Jack bites his lip. 

"Here," he says. He takes the Doctor by the hip and shoulder and guides him gently but firmly back over onto his stomach. 

Kneeling, Jack pauses to admire the view. Presses an impulsive kiss into the small of the Doctor's back; moves south, tongues the dimple below one cheek, eliciting a muffled yelp. Resists the temptation to just keep going, for now. Instead, he picks up the bottle of almond oil and warms a few drops between his hands. Once again, he rests a hand over the nape of the Doctor's neck before starting his ministrations. 

It's more or less a proper therapeutic massage, one of the many skills Jack's picked up over the years. Slowly but thoroughly, he works through each knot, alternating deep pressure with light Swedish-style soothing. Stretches and shakes out the Doctor's extremities, bends and twists each increasingly pliant limb as though the Doctor were a doll. (His doll). At the same time, he allows himself all the liberties he didn't take in the shower: caressing, tickling, licking and kissing and sucking and squeezing, punctuated by the odd soft smack or light bite.

He's half-clambered back onto the sofa now; it's a constant dance to maintain both leverage and access to the Doctor's body, and he's beginning to get a bit of a strain on one side. He can't complain, though, all things considered.

He runs his tongue down the bumps of the Doctor's spine, taking one long leisurely sweep from stem to stern (pausing briefly to suckle the delectable little mole between his shoulder blades). Presses the heels of his hands into the Doctor's sitz bones, knuckles in and under and kneads like a cat. The Doctor groans pleasurably, then gasps as Jack, hands still busy on either side, continues licking right down into the crevice between his cheeks. 

Jack spends quite a bit of time on the Doctor's ass, in fact. By the end he's not even pretending to massage anymore, just blatantly feeling the Doctor up and playing with his asshole. He doesn't actually penetrate, but teases around the sensitive rim, spreads and pushes and pulls the flesh around it, rubs, circles, blows, tongue-tickles, spider-fingers, sucker-bites... 

When he judges the Doctor's just about melted, Jack works down his legs at a leisurely pace. Rubs his feet, mouths each toe. Finally, he simply slides forward until he's fully sprawled on top of the Doctor. Slowly grinds his hips; beneath him, the Doctor gasps and wriggles and half-arches and babbles something or other.

"Ssh," Jack breathes into his ear. He traces the shell with his tongue. Suckles the lobe. The Doctor burbles. Jack bites, tenderly. "No talking, remember?" 

He slips one lightly oiled hand between the Doctor's chest and the cushion, finds a nipple and twists. The Doctor's shivering again, hard little shudders that make Jack's balance a tad precarious, but send vicarious tingles rippling up his own spine. 

Slowly he slides his pinioned hand down, down. Feels stomach muscles jump and flutter, trails over a thatch of hair, and then... Jack twists his wrist, and there he is, the Doctor, smooth and firm and bloodwarm, trapped between their two bodies and the couch, throbbing in Jack's cupped hand. Jack gives a light squeeze. The Doctor moans, low and long.

"That's it," Jack murmurs. He squeezes and flutters, rubs his thumb in a small, slow circle, spreading wetness. Tugs. At the same time, he shifts his hips so that he slips into the slit between the other man's buttocks. Wallows in a slow sensual dig until he's securely nestled there. He begins to rock a little faster, then, slipping and sliding, and the Doctor rolls with him.

"That's it," Jack breathes again, raggedly, "that's it, baby, that's it..." 

He circles and strokes, ever smaller and tighter and faster, making the Doctor writhe and squirm and pant. Twists and pulls and grinds until the Doctor keens for him again. 

"...You know what I think?" whispers Jack. He can barely hear himself over the pounding in his ears. Loosely fists the Doctor's hair, drags his head back, sucks noisily at his neck. The Doctor gasps, seems to stutter beneath him. 

"Someone..." he hisses into the Doctor's ear, "is..." a soft lick, "almost..." a tug, a twist of the palm, "...ready..."

The Doctor shudders and shudders. Twitches and throbs between Jack's busy fingers. 

"...Let go," Jack breathes, and squeezes; and, with a sound like a sob, the Doctor does.

It's almost enough by itself. 

He rubs the stickiness between his fingers, letting the aftershocks pulse through him. Finds his groove again. Leans back in toward the Doctor's ear, deliberately, even as he speeds up below the waist, and scolds, softly:

"You've gotten the couch all wet."

The Doctor bucks up once, sharply, and Jack goes over the edge himself.

He collapses, breathing hard. The Doctor's already limp and heavy beneath him. Jack carefully extricates his cramping hand. Shifts so that he's not putting undue pressure on the Doctor's spine. Relaxes, then, and rests his cheek against the Doctor's neck. He'll get up in a minute.

Drowsily, Jack notes that the Doctor is shaking beneath him. He snaps fully awake, then. 

"Doctor?" He touches the other man's cheek, dismayed. The Doctor tilts his head to look at him, as much as he can do in that position. Jack realizes he's laughing, not crying. He smiles in relief and amusement. 

He starts to roll over and off. The Doctor hooks an arm behind him and pulls Jack back down on top of himself, still giggling away. Jack is utterly bemused. 

"Okay..." 

The Doctor shakes harder. It's infectious; Jack starts to laugh himself, and can't stop.

He hitches and snorts. Tries to get up; the Doctor keeps clutching at him, and they both dissolve all over again. "Come on," he manages. Finally untangles himself and swings to the ground. Holds out a hand to the Doctor. 

"Bedtime."

The Doctor rolls over, and he's a sight: pillow marks all over one side of his face, and oh, God, the hair is wonderful. He squints at Jack. 

"'S wrong with here?"

"You want to lie in the wet spot all night."

"Yes."

"You do."

"It could be very interesting."

"With me lying on top of you."

"With," says the Doctor with dreamy pedantry, "as you say, you on top of me." He grins.

Jack shakes his head. "Come on," he repeats. He holds out his hand again, more insistently. The Doctor flings an arm over his face. "Too tired." 

"Doctor..." Jack tries to tug him gently to a sitting position; the Doctor feebly pushes a foot at him and rolls over again.

"Oh, now, really," Jack says.

The Doctor opens one eye. "Carry me, then."

Jack raises his eyebrows. "Someone's a pushy bottom."

"What?" The Doctor is all muzzy indignation. "What?" He shuts his eyes again, decisively.

A moment later, he's wide awake and pealing fresh laughter to the ceiling as Jack actually scoops him up. Jack grins back as the Doctor hooks an arm around his neck. 

"Okay, which way?"

The Doctor ponders. "That way," he decides. 

Jack heads that way, only staggering slightly. The Doctor takes in his surroundings from his newfound perspective in a manner that reminds Jack irresistibly of cats, an impression that's only strengthened when the Doctor actually reaches up to touch a ceiling lamp. 

Gradually, though, the Doctor drifts off again, only rousing himself to give directions. One right, two left. Down the hall, up the goddam circular staircase (since when did the TARDIS have multiple levels, anyway?) It'd be a fascinating tour of the many rooms he's never explored before, in other circumstances.

Finally, when his back is just about to give out, Jack comes to a halt. Props himself against a wall. It's a minute or so before he's able to speak.

"Doctor. Where. is. your. bedroom?"

The Doctor, now contentedly resting his head against Jack's shoulder, cracks an eye open.

"Hmm? Oh, well, you should have said that's what you wanted. I thought you knew how the TARDIS works. Could we take another turn around the hanging gardens? That was lovely." He smiles, a sleepy, blandly innocent smile, and shuts his eyes again.

Jack tucks his tongue into his cheek, hard. "Right."

A few seconds later, they've arrived at Jack's destination. He clears his throat.

The Doctor takes one look and bolts wide awake: they're standing at the edge of the pool. He looks at Jack with enormous eyes.

"You wouldn't dare."

Jack offers the Doctor his most heartfelt smile, and deliberately drops him into the water.

"Oh, f--"

The Doctor emerges, sputtering and spluttering. 

"Oh, you plonker!"

Jack grins. "Literally."

"Jammy bastard. Don't think you've won. I'll do you for that."

"Yeah?" Abruptly, Jack dives in, neatly evading the Doctor's attempts to grasp his ankle. Submerged, he bites the Doctor's ass, then surfaces an inch away from the Doctor's face. Sultry: 

"So, do me."

They half-tussle, half embrace in the water for a little while. 

When they're both too tired to continue, Jack lifts the Doctor in his arms again: in here, he's not a burden. He stands, fixed point in the ebb and flow, gently cradling the Doctor, letting him drift. Letting him rest.

Waves of white come down over Jack periodically, now, and he knows he really is falling asleep. 

"Come on," he whispers to the Doctor, once more. The Doctor groans, but this time lets himself be led. They help each other out of the pool, grope blindly for the towels that of course are right there for them. Make their way together to the little door that's only just now appeared in the wall. Jack flings it open and stumbles in after the Doctor.

It's completely dark. Jack pitches over onto a soft something he hopes is a bed, but is too tired to really care.

He's asleep before his head hits the pillow.


	9. Alpha

_"You realize this is all your fault," the Master says conversationally. Behind him, smoke drifts up from the ruined landscape, charred ideograms against the colorless sky._

_Jack pulls himself up by his chains again. Starts to reply, gags. Spits out a few more teeth. With a solicitous air, the Master produces a pristine white handkerchief and catches them._

_"Yeah," Jack says. "I know." He grins bloodily._

_The Master grins back, equally feral. "No."_

_It's a knife, not a handkerchief; the Master flicks it with one impeccably manicured fingernail and it rings agonizingly behind Jack's eyes._

_"You think I mean your chasing after your pathetic pash--oh, if only you hadn't leaped on his little tin can, driving him and his latest chaste playmate all the way to the end of Time, and directly into my arms!--but you're -wrong-." The Master does a cruelly accurate vocal impression of the Doctor._

_Lightly, he inserts the tip of the knife into one of the half-dozen or so open wounds around Jack's solar plexus, twisting it this way and that._

_"So, very. Very. Wrong."_

_Above him, Lucy crouches on the balcony, watching with eyes like marbles, one hand busy beneath her torn skirt. A smear of red is at her mouth; a red stream or ribbon descends from between her legs, twisting and coiling..._

_The Master leans in, confidentially. There's Scotch and madness on his breath._

_"What was thy pity's recompense?"_

_He gestures with the ringed hand in the direction of the devastated Earth below._

_"And you have to admit, that -is- one sad reality. Wretched little insects. They eat their own." He smiles at Jack, all sweetness and charm. "Quite literally."_

_(A flash of Welsh countryside, eyes like dead lights, a rictus grin, charnel stench._

_"'Coz it made me happy.")_

_"This is -my- body," the Master muses, as he shoves a hand in Jack's mouth, keeping his jaws prised safely apart with the other,_

_"take,"_

_Another spasm of agony as the Master wrenches out yet another tooth, then regards the bloody mess with an expression of exaggerated distaste._

_"...ew." The Master wipes his hand on the tattered remains of Jack's trousers. Takes a sip from the eternal tumbler. Appears pensive for a moment. Turning back to Jack:_

_"No. Your -real- sin, you jumped-up simian freak, is thinking"--he pushes knuckles into Jack's temple--"that you were worth saving in the first place. Oh, I know," --exaggerated sympathy-- "you didn't ask for any of this. And as we know, it's what's in your heart"--the Master savagely punches Jack in the chest, taking his breath away--"that really matters. But the -fact- remains. You. don't. belong. here."_

_He takes another swig, then flashes that manic grin again._

_"But but but! In defiance of all that's right and proper: Here you are! With Us! High in the sky, singing pretty for the birdies, and isn't it -good-? Isn't it swell? Ain't we got fun! fun! fun!"_

_He punctuates each "fun!" with a different subtle something that Jack blessedly can't see, but nearly makes him vomit from the pain regardless. And keeps going for a good while even after the words stop._

_The Master leans back, regarding him through hooded eyes._

_"What are you waiting for, handsome Jack?"_

_He doesn't respond. Won't. Can't._

_"No one's coming for you."_

_That corpselike smile again. Jack shudders, and it becomes unstoppable, excruciating wracking._

_"He's senile, Jackie-lad. Enfeebled. Drooling. -Beshitting- himself--but it's all the same to you, isn't it, freak? You'll always long for him. And he'll never care. Tragic, really, in a tedious sort of way--"_

_"Go to hell," Jack manages, and the Master laughs merrily, clapping his hands like a child._

_Abruptly, it stops, and the Master's face is a death mask. He leans in again._

_"No one. Is coming. Not even him. Not even"--the Master taps Jack's chest again, and it's all he can do to keep from screaming--"you."_

_Jack casts his eyes upward in a vain attempt to get at least some part of himself away from the invasion; mockingly, the Master follows his gaze with his whole body, leaping to his feet, striking a pose of exaggerated supplication._

_"Eli, eli, lama sabachthani?" the Master intones dramatically._

_"Mene," he adds, now punctuating each word with a deeper white-hot slice of the knife, "mene, tickle me Elmo," and the last slash nearly undoes Jack altogether._

_He clutches his chains again, tries to stay standing, as he loses breath and blood._

_Behind the Master, the coils of smoke knot, writhe, form themselves into the legend:_

_"YOU ARE NOT ALONE"_

_and then the "NOT" dissolves and drips sootily down the grey-white sky._

_"Oh yes indeed," the Master breathes, "you are, you are."_

_Jack is startled and dismayed to see Martha wandering at the end of the corridor. No, he thinks, go back, it's too soon, this isn't how it's supposed to go, it's-_

_"Wrong?" the Master supplies helpfully. "Oh, don't trouble yourself about -that.- We've miles to go, here. Light years. Eons. And it doesn't matter anyway. Which you still refuse to learn, but don't worry, you will."_

_The Master dangles the fob watch before Jack's eyes, then throws it to the ground._

_"-No-," Jack croaks, but the Master stomps on it anyway, and it shatters in a burst of golden light._

_The Master claps again. "And now! What game shall we play? I know! Let's cut you into cubes and then bury each piece on a different planet. That could be fun! I'm dying to find out how you come back from that one, how about you? Or," he muses, coming closer still, somehow, "alternately, we could skip the foreplay and just--"_

_\--and the Master is suddenly Myfawnwy, and with a savage screech and one flash of knife/claws/teeth/, Jack is eviscerated, but he can still see, he can still feel, he can still -scream,- and he does, and he does and he does and_

he's gasping harshly for breath, that first horrible intake, so familiar by now, but he's never gotten used to it. He's lost all bearings and thinks, incoherently, on seeing the -nothing,- that either he's still down or the Master's blinded him again, just for laughs. 

Then there's a cool dry hand at his forehead, stroking, and the Doctor's calm voice:

"All right, Jack. You're all right, now."

Jack shudders as though he's just given birth. His skin is still crawling, but oh, God, the Doctor, the Doctor is holding him and it's worth--well, a lot. 

He shuts his eyes tightly; the green afterimage spots change to red. The arm supporting him is thin but wire-strong and the best thing in the world. 

He shifts around, trying to settle against the Doctor's bony frame in a way that's comfortable for both of them. The Doctor's pulse double-times faintly against his cheek. For a while they just breathe.

"You saw?" Jack asks, eventually. He's not sure why he's whispering.

"I was there. Yes."

"...Did it really happen?" He wishes he could keep the plaintive note out of his voice. 

"I'm afraid so." Jack sighs. The arm tightens. "Although," the Doctor continues, "it's true I don't remember the pterodactyl..."

"Myfanwy," Jack murmurs.

"Myfanwy?"

"She's ours. Torchwood's," he clarifies, before remembering that isn't exactly the Doctor's favorite word.

"You've got a pet pterodactyl at Torchwood? And you've named her Myfanwy."

"...Yeah?"

"Brilliant." Jack can actually hear the Doctor grinning in the dark. 

Come down and see us sometime, he thinks he'll say, but he's too tired. The Doctor is still smoothing his brow, and -that- is the best thing in the -universe,- ever.

And suddenly he realizes that there's something else happening as well: inside. There's a presence in his mind again, this time so unobtrusive he's barely noticed it, wouldn't have done if it weren't for the subtle rearranging he's just noticed: doors rusted shut eased into just-barely-ajar positions; others, open as wide as an exposed nerve from a pulled tooth, gently swinging shut. Memories filled with screaming Technicolor images and deafening sounds being, not erased, but just...toned down a few notches, dulled almost to the point of being bearable. His eyes are open again.

"You fixing me, Doc?"

"Just...tinkering a little around the edges," comes the murmuring voice. "Do you want me to stop?"

Jack shakes his head, almost violently. Never. Please. 

The hand continues to gently stroke. A feeling steals over Jack, one he can't remember having had in...he doesn't even remember how long. Something almost like peace.

As he's drifting off, it occurs to him to wonder: why doesn't the Doctor heal himself this way?

The hand trembles and stills for a moment, then keeps going. Of course he can hear. And the answer occurs to Jack, sadly: he probably already has.


	10. Theta

_...and somehow, miraculously, he's gotten away again. The bird must have helped him after all, even if it did tear out his heart. He wants to fall to his knees and weep: it's still the most beautiful thing he's ever seen, all red and gold, dazzling in the sun. He yearns, he adores, he reaches; but the burning bird is ever-elusive, ever above him._

_Earthbound as he is, he tracks his savior nonetheless: through rocky wastelands and dark forests, for leagues and leagues until he can barely remember the start of his journey, much less conceive of its end. Sometimes he even forgets to look up, but he never entirely loses sight of his_

_(beloved)_

_prize._

_He carries a single feather, as a favor._

_At last he reaches a clearing, or so he thinks, and the_

_(angel)_

_bird is there, as it always is. But just as Jack starts to run toward it, he's tripped up, and confusion overtakes him. He looks over his shoulder and it's_

_("Koschei")_

_an old man, older than old, cadaverous with hunger. He wants to eat the world, Jack can see that much even from his lowly position, and he can and he will, starting with the beautiful, now vulnerable creature before them..._

_No, Jack starts to say, but even as his lips start to form the word he understands that he doesn't understand anything, really. The bird is not a bird; the old man is not an old man. Shapeshifters, tricksters, magic-makers, the pair of them: ancient and sly and powerful and_

_(deathless)_

_or near enough. The one seizes the other with a shriek of joy and pain, and they're dancing, making the distant mountains rumble, tearing the earth and the sky together while poor Jack can only watch, agape._

_He would kill the other one, would Jack, the hungry one, the heartless one. If he knew where it really lived, he would crush it like an egg. But he can't, because he's been missing something--_

He's awake.

It's still completely dark, but he knows, somehow, that the Doctor's eyes are wide open, and have been the entire night.

"Did you love him?"

He stops himself before he says it out loud, but the Doctor answers him anyway. Voice a little too rough:

"Don't be stupid."

Jack lets it go.


	11. Delta

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW S2 and DW S4 referenced; some quotes from Classic Who as well.

_He knows this place, although he's never_

_(always)_

_been here. Furthermore, he knows he's dreaming._

_He sees and hears everything with a perfect, crystalline lucidity: each blade of dull maroon grass snapping beneath his feet, each vein on a dry silver leaf that flutters down from a stooped tree. The individual dust motes suspended in a too-white sun(s)beam. Far away, somewhere, the ocean churns; he can smell it. And he knows, too, in a corner of his mind, that if he wanted to, he could get down to the beach or anywhere else simply by_

_(wishing)_

_thinking about it; but he doesn't. He takes the slow path. He walks._

_And as he walks, he becomes increasingly afraid. This place is too silent; this place is too still; this place is, well...wrong._

_("You don't belong here")_

_but no, that's not right either; it's not just him, all of this...it shouldn't be._

_He looks up: there's a jagged rip in the burnt-orange sky. It looks raw and dull at once, a wound in dead flesh._

_He looks to either side of him. A tangle of thorns and brittle, blackened roses._

_He looks down: bestilled Toclafane litter the ground. Some are whole and closed. Some are empty, like beetle husks. Some have split open to reveal their ghastly contents, still intact. Jack accidentally kicks one of these; it rolls a little way ahead and then stops, face up. He bends to examine it more closely: it's Owen, milky eyes staring blankly at the blank sky._

_"I'm sorry," he whispers, inadequately. His lips feel numb. "I--" He stops his shaking hand mid-reach, forces himself to hurry away._

_None of this is real; all of this horror can be undone. He clings to that; he has to. He's already seen the ending, he knows how this turns out, this seeming endless nightmare, the once and future never-was. He just needs to soldier on._

_He soldiers on._

_The path whitens and widens and curves._

_Presently he comes to a city, gleaming and sterile and silent. It's so bright here, it sickens him._

_He looks behind him. He has no shadow._

_There's no one here. No sign of life. He tries to tell himself there's nothing to fear from nothing,_

_(there's nothing, oh God)_

_but it doesn't work. His mouth is sour and electric. His breath comes in sharp, painful bursts. The suns seem to give heat as well as light, but despite the surface warming of his skin, he's cold_

_(so cold)_

_The air seems to thicken around him; the silence is palpable. He feels like he's moving through_

_(white noise. Void)_

_aspic, something. He doesn't turn around again. He keeps his gaze focused straight ahead. Tries not to notice anything from the corner of his eye. Doesn't even blink. Sludges on. Just keep going. Almost there._

_(and whatever you do, don't)_

_His skin won't stop crawling. His heart thunders like drums in his head._

_And suddenly, as if through the wrong end of a telescope, there's a young boy, standing, just there._

_Jack breaks into a run, boots crunching in the sand. The boy watches his approach placidly. A name trembles on Jack's lips, but even as he starts to call out to the boy, he realizes he doesn't actually know what it is. Or who he is. And yet..._

_He must be through the looking glass, because he's been running as fast as he can for what feels like forever, and he hasn't moved forward at all. He stops when the pain in his side is too great to continue. But he blinks, once, and then the boy is standing right beside Jack, regarding him solemnly with eyes that are_

_(gray)_

_forget-me-not-blue and far too old._

_"Hello."_

_"Hello."_

_The boy is holding a ball. He bounces it against the cliffside, once, twice. Then he tosses it to Jack. Jack catches it and throws it back. The boy plucks it out of the air with three fingers, nimbly. He offers a little half-smile._

_A thousand questions flit through Jack's mind and are gone in an instant._

_"We need to get out of here," he says, brusquely. He holds out his hand. The boy looks at it but doesn't take it. Just keeps bouncing the ball._

_"It's not safe."_

_"Not safe," the boy echoes softly._

_Jack starts to step closer, then halts._

_"...Don't you want to go home?"_

_The boy raises an eyebrow. "I live here."_

_"But..." Jack stops, helplessly. Then: "You'll be all alone."_

_"I've always been here," the boy says simply._

_Bounce._

_Jack persists. "It's dead. There's no one else here."_

_"No," the boy agrees. The silence stretches like putty._

_Jack blurts, "Who's going to take care of you?"_

_The boy gives Jack a sympathetic smile, as though he's the adult and Jack is the child. He beckons to Jack: I've got a secret. Jack crouches down._

_The boy runs the ball rapidly from finger to finger, like a practiced stage magician. He throws it straight up and it vanishes. He spreads his hands: where'd it go? Then he leans in toward Jack and pulls the ball from behind his ear. Tips Jack a wink. Twiddles his fingers, and there's a flash of silver. He tosses the cylindrical object into the air, catches it, and tucks it into the front of his tunic in an oddly familiar gesture. Spreads his empty hands again, then puts them behind his back. Show's over._

_Abruptly, Jack decides he's tired of riddles._

_He grabs the child by his shoulders, forcing him to look at Jack._

_"Now, listen. Get used to this idea: I am not leaving you behind."_

_(not again)_

_He frowns, shaking it off. Looks intently into the boy's strange eyes._

_"Tell me what happened here."_

_The boy just looks at him._

_"What happened?" Jack repeats. Unaccountably, he's lowered his voice to a whisper. His grip loosens._

_"...Where is everyone?"_

_The boy looks to his left and right. Smiles, a lovely, charming smile. Leans in toward Jack, conspiratorially:_

_"I killed_

them."

 

Jack opens his eyes to darkness. Beside him, the Doctor's reedy, flat voice continues as though there's been no interruption, which Jack supposes there hasn't been.

"Would've thought that was obvious. All of my people, dead; but not me. End of the Time War, last man standing. How'd I survive? How'd you think?"

Jack finally realizes it wasn't a rhetorical question. "I...didn't." Then, "But, the Daleks..."

"Reports of their demise have been greatly exaggerated." A dry cough, like boards clapping. "Couldn't even get that right. Well. Points for trying, mm? Oh, wait. Maybe not." Another thin sigh. "They should have anticipated it would go pear shaped. Made a right botch of the job the first time they asked me, didn't I..."

Jack lies on his back and stares at nothing as the Doctor drones on. Sensations and images and subtler...communications...come to Jack as he listens to the spoken-word part of the story: part illustration, part shorthand. And something else as well, coiling up between the words like smoke...

"...I suppose they thought I could, how do the Americans put it? 'Think outside the box.' Not generally a virtue among my people, but desperate times, etcetera. And I did, I thought outside the box. I opened the box."

_innocent_

_(Pandora)_

_flower, not knowing what she's unleashed_

_no one's ever meant to have that power_

_the last act of the Time War was_

"You did what she did," Jack says aloud.

"I looked into the heart of the TARDIS and absorbed the power of the Vortex. Yes."

_but she was human. So human/_

_if a Time Lord did that he'd become a god_

"So simple, isn't it? Simple and brilliant. Why on Gallifrey did no one try it before? Cut straight through the Gordian knot with a single stroke: hey, presto! A -literal- god from the machine. No more Daleks. No more problems. What could possibly go wrong?"

A sound that could either be a laugh or a sob.

_a **vengefu** l god_

Jack shakes his head, attempting to dispel the images and whispers for a moment.

"When Rose..." he starts, then stops. Then: "You said she couldn't control it."

"She couldn't control it," the Doctor repeats. "Of course she couldn't. She didn't even realize what she was doing. Bless her. She just..."

Jack feels the Doctor shudder beside him.

"...Made a wish, I suppose," the Doctor finishes softly. "Make everything better. Destroy the enemy, bring my friend back to life. And there you were, blazing away like a broken-off chunk of the Untempered itself, well, in fact..."

The Doctor trails off, then hurries on. "I took it out of her, then. I had to. She would have kept going, you see."

"Like you did," Jack says. He hears/feels the Doctor swallow convulsively.

Jack allows himself to simply accept the impressions as they come to him, then. Echoes from their earlier, more voltaic connection, now resolving into something like a narrative. A bewildering jumble of emotions: terror and horror and sorrow, and the suffocating miasma of guilt overlaying everything, of course; but also something else, wrapped up in fragments of older memories...

_(betrayed)_

_(abandoned)_

_As I believe I told you long ago, Doctor, you will never amount to anything in the galaxy while/_

_a pariah, outlawed from Time Lord Society/_

_never easy being the only child left out in the cold/_

_such a lonely little boy, lonely then and lonelier_

It occurs to Jack that he's probably supposed to be having some sort of reaction to these revelations. It's a bit difficult to sort out his own thoughts and feelings, but eventually he locates them: they're by far the most bearable ones.

Aloud, he says:

"I forgive you."

The effect on the Doctor is extraordinary: he bolts halfway up, and Jack can actually feel shock waves of energy running off the man.

"Fuck you."

Jack manages to pin the Doctor's arms as he attempts to thrash his way past Jack and out of the bed. The Doctor's voice is so thick and distorted, Jack can just barely make out what he's saying:

"No right. No right. You don't know anything. Who the hell do you think you are?"

"That's right," Jack says loudly, overlapping him. "I don't know anything. Not about pain, not about guilt, not about war, not about loss, and for damn sure not about you."

The Doctor's stopped fighting, but he's still trembling like a wire.

"And I wasn't there, and I'm not a goddamn Time Lord, and it's not my place -or- my responsibility, but you know what? I'm doing it anyway. Because someone has to. I forgive you whether you like it or not."

The energy goes out of both of them, and they sink back down into the bed together, still entangled.

Jack lets his head fall back, knocking against the wall. He wonders if he's gone completely insane.

When the Doctor finally speaks again, it's in a completely different voice, if one that's also almost unrecognizable.

"Do you hate me?"

Jack's own voice breaks, just a little. "No, love."

"Why?" Soft, plaintive.

"I love you," Jack says simply.

In anguished tones, now: "Why?"

Helplessly, Jack casts his gaze around the room, but there's no purchase in the dark.

"...Because I love you." What else is there to say?

"I ran," the Doctor says, as if explaining to a child. One child to another.

"I know. You apologized. It...it's done. I'm all right, now. Yeah? I'm here, and you're here, and--"

"No," the Doctor insists. "You don't understand..."

He's shaking; Jack tightens his arms about him.

"What, then? Tell me."

"I..." The words come like coughed-up pebbles. "When they took me to see...they made me. I didn't know...It was...I couldn't understand...too much, it was too bright, it didn't make sense, it...everything, there's... **everything,** and I, I...ran away from, I had to, losing myself, couldn't look...and I failed, yes, coward, I know, not good enough, never was, always running, but, oh, I wanted...I wanted..."

Jack just listens, brow furrowed, gentling the Doctor's hair. Holding him.

"...Do you understand?"

"I don't have to," Jack says, and knows as he says it that it's the truth.

The Doctor heaves out a sobbing sigh and half turns away. Jack spoons into him. Coaxes the Doctor back into his arms.

"I don't have to," he repeats, as gently as he can. "Some things just are. Yeah? Maybe, some things just...are."

The Doctor sighs again, as if in defeat. His head falls back against Jack's neck.

"You must be so tired," Jack murmurs.

The Doctor lets out a small sob.

"What if you stopped?" Jack tries. "Just stop running..."

The Doctor immediately goes rigid all over.

"No?" Jack says. "What would happen? Would it be so bad?"

The Doctor is shaking again, and his breath is rapid and shallow.

_do you want to run now?_

_yes_

"Okay," Jack soothes. "You don't have to. You don't have to..."

Little by little, the Doctor relaxes again.

"Just rest now, then," Jack murmurs. "Little sleep, hm? Little rest."

"I don't think I can," the Doctor chokes.

"No?" Jack says softly. "Not even that?" He touches the Doctor's face; wetness. "Honey..."

"Oh don't don't don't," the Doctor says brokenly, but at least he doesn't pull away.

Jack finds the Doctor's hand, and entwines the long fingers with his own.

"How can I help?" murmurs Jack. "Tell me. Tell me..."

The Doctor doesn't say anything, but squeezes Jack's hand.

"What can I do? Hm? Help you sleep? Even that?" He squeezes back. "Sing you a lullaby?"

The Doctor snorts, a sad little laugh. "Sure."

There's no sound, then, but the both of them breathing.

Then Jack begins to sing, the first thing that comes to him:

"See the pyramids along the Nile,"**

The Doctor stiffens and makes a surprised noise, but settles down again as Jack softly continues.

"Watch the sunrise on a tropic isle.  
Just remember, darling, all the while,  
You belong to me."

His lips brush the top of the Doctor's head.

"See the marketplace in old Algiers,  
Send me photographs and souvenirs..."

When he comes to the end of the lyrics, he keeps humming, occasionally murmuring nonsense syllables. The Doctor's breathing has slowed and evened out, he notes vaguely. The waves of white are coming back, and

_he's gotten down to the beach, that's what it is, and the Doctor's still with him, still in his arms. He's holding the Doctor's hand and that's all that matters; he knows he won't let go, even when the tide rolls in. And when it goes back out again, they'll still be there, the two of them._

_And the tide rolls in,_

and there are no more dreams.

*

**Patsy Cline, "You Belong To Me"


	12. Awakening

He opens his eyes blearily, when the brightening gold behind his lids becomes too insistent for him to ignore anymore. 

The expression on the Doctor's face, inches away from his, is one Jack had never really expected to see there, but it quite literally takes his breath away. 

Later, when he's more focused, he'll remember, and marvel again, at the capabilities of the TARDIS, now apparently mimicking/producing morning sunlight based on its occupants' biorhythms and its own subtle consciousness. At the moment, he can only think, hazily, that the light must be coming from the Doctor himself. 

He smiles, then, the Doctor, a gentle, lovely smile. 

"Hello." 

"Hello," Jack says back, feeling the grin spread all over his face. 

And then, because he figures the Doctor should finally have his turn, and because it pleases him, he slips into the old flirtatious manner, chucking the Doctor under the chin: 

"...And who are you?" 

The Doctor quirks his mouth at him, and Jack waits pleasurably for the mock rebuke. 

Instead, the Doctor says... 

...something. 

Jack just blinks at him, feeling like he's not quite awake yet after all. 

"Come again?" 

The Doctor laughs a little. 

"It's Gallifreyan. It doesn't translate." The smile fades, but he's still looking at Jack intently.   
"My name." 

Jack forgets to breathe all over again. Then: 

"Wait. So...Say it again?" 

The Doctor says, or rather does "it" again, more slowly.

It's actually not all that hard to understand, the spoken bit at least, Jack realizes. A handful of syllables, a glottal-yet-strangely-liquid intonation that would be challenging, yet not impossible, to reproduce; even, perhaps, eventually, for Jack's adopted 19th-20th-21st century American tongue, let alone the multiple fluencies of a child from the more sophisticated 51st century. But there's something behind it, like shadow-puppets, or... 

"One more time?" 

The Doctor repeats it. Jack tilts his head, frowning. 

... 

Flashes of dream and image and symbol and music, and something maddeningly subtle and beyond his reach, as has been happening on and off ever since he was first entered and then galvanized by the Doctor last night. The language of Gallifrey, he realizes, finally, is mostly telepathic; the vocalization is only a small part of it. And much of the...iconography...communication...he can't even name it...that's coming to him now is simply beyond his ken. It would take a seventh sense, or an eighth: abilities he just doesn't have, as well as a context he just doesn't know. To get it fully, anyway. But... 

"One more time." 

The Doctor repeats it again, smiling, putting a hand over Jack's. 

Jack lets go of analysis and simply repeats the spoken part, approximating as best he can. As he does, a few things come to him more clearly: a feeling-sense of lightness, of airiness. An image/impression of something that's like a library but (if it could be seen) shimmers in strings; and a bridge made of music he can almost remember...and, yes, that's something not entirely unlike a bird... 

"That's right," the Doctor encourages, but Jack's tired now. Pleased, but tired. 

He thinks they might just go on smiling at each other like blissful idiots, and he's perfectly content with that. But then he realizes the Doctor is expecting him to say something. Etiquette? Jack has no idea here, unless... 

Oh. Right. Of course. 

"I don't remember," Jack says. 

The Doctor looks at him sadly. His hand is still stroking lightly over Jack's. 

Jack closes his eyes in simple acceptance...and suddenly, it's like something tumbles and falls into place, or maybe out of place. A chink in a wall... and for one brief but shining moment Jack remembers everything important. 

And he tells the Doctor his name.


End file.
